Outcubation—where incubation meets outsourcing

CORRESPONDENCE
Huub Schellekens & Ellen Moors
Department of Innovation, Utrecht University,
Utrecht, the Netherlands, and Department of
Pharmaceutical Sciences, Utrecht University,
Utrecht, the Netherlands.
e-mail: [email protected]
1. 1. Dorey, E. Nat. Biotechnol. 31, 774 (2013).
2. European Medicines Agency. CHMP Assessment Report
for Filgrastim Hexal. (no. EMEA/CHMP/651324/2008)
http://www.ema.europa.eu/docs/en_GB/docu ment_library/EPAR_-_Public_assessment_report/
human/000918/WC500022471.pdf (2008).
3.European Medicines Agency. European Public
Assessment Report for Binocrit. http://www.
ema.europa.eu/docs/en_GB/document_library/
EPAR_-_Scientific_Discussion/human/000725/
WC500053615.pdf (2007).
4. European Medicines Agency. CHMP Assessment Report
for Remsima. (no. EMA/CHMP/589317/2013) http://
www.ema.europa.eu/docs/en_GB/document_library/
EPAR_-_Public_assessment_report/human/002576/
WC500151486.pdf (2013).
5. European Medicines Agency. CHMP Draft Guideline
on Similar Biological Medicinal Products Containing
Biotechnology-Derived Proteins as Active Substance:
Non-Clinical and Clinical Issues. (no. CHMP EMEA/
CHMP/BMWP/42832/2005, rev. 1) http://www.ema.
europa.eu/docs/en_GB/document_library/Scientific_
guideline/2009/09/WC500003920.pdf (2006).
npg
© 2015 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved.
Outcubation—where incubation
meets outsourcing
To the Editor:
As highlighted in your February 2014 issue1,
the pharma industry is increasingly relying on
externalization efforts to supplement its inhouse R&D activities2. Such activities have a
long history and had been taking place within
pharmaceutical companies long before Henry
Chesbrough formulated his open innovation
paradigm in 2003 (ref. 3). Indeed, there is
an ample literature discussing the models
and impact of open
innovation approaches for
the pharma industry4,5.
In the following
Correspondence, we
describe the design and
implementation of a new
model of open innovation
between academia and
industry—a model
we term ‘outcubation’.
This model is designed
to overcome the
disadvantages of existing
innovation models,
provides an alternative
path for young scientists
open to opportunities outside of academic
tenure and combines synergistically the best
of the academic and industry worlds.
Today, typical models for exploiting external
innovation resources include outsourcing
to contract research organizations (CROs),
research collaborations with academic
institutions, crowdsourcing, corporate venture
capital (CVC), in-licensing and mergers and
acquisitions (M&A). Each approach has
drawbacks; for example, outsourcing to a
CRO may lead to a lack of innovative input,
whereas an academic collaboration may not
have enough oversight by the industry partner
to be productive. With in-licensing, the cost
20
of scouting, due diligence, internalization of
the asset and licensing fees can be very high
compared with expenses in other innovation
approaches. The major challenges of the
M&A approach are integration issues and
decreased R&D productivity of the merged
organizations6. The CVC approach usually
does not exploit the potential synergy
between internal and external resources.
With crowdsourcing approaches, which are
becoming increasingly
popular, the quality of
the submitted solutions
is highly variable, and
substantial screening
and evaluation efforts are
required.
To overcome the
disadvantages of the
models described
above, we have created
a new type of academicindustry partnership that
synergizes the strengths
of both. In this model,
a company formulates
a challenge (or topic)
relating to an open question or problem in
preclinical work (e.g., a new biomarker, drug
target, drug candidate or tool that is currently
not available but would be of substantial
value for future product development).
This is published as a call for applications at
major universities and research institutions
worldwide, as well as on job portals.
Outstanding young academic postdoctoral
researchers and postgraduates are invited to
submit their CVs along with original project
proposals that reflect their expertise and
specifically address the published challenge.
In the next stage, the best candidates from
around the world are invited to participate in
a five-day boot camp. Candidates are divided
into diverse teams and, with guidance from
experienced mentors and with relevant
business intelligence (e.g., access to the
science and intellectual property literature and
to market research data), develop competitive
project proposals. On day five, they present
their project proposals to a jury comprising
senior management of the pharma company.
The most attractive project proposal and the
most talented candidates are selected, and
the candidates receive a two- to four-year
fellowship to work on their project.
The selected academic talents are then
employed by and relocated to an outcubator,
which is incorporated as a private biotech
company. The outcubator is located on the
campus of a global innovation hub, such as
Heidelberg, Germany, and includes access
to a state-of-the-art cell and molecular
biology laboratory, office space and social
space. Each selected team is sponsored by a
pharma partner and guided by an experienced
industry mentor (e.g., senior researcher of
the sponsor company) and an academic
mentor (e.g., a local professor from the
specific field of the team’s research topic).
The academic mentor is proposed by the
pharma partner and also is involved in team
member selection. A team usually consists of
a group leader (an experienced postdoctoral
researcher with outstanding accomplishments
in the field), two or three postdocs and two or
three postgraduates or technicians.
With their location at innovation
hotspots, outcubators are well integrated
in the scientific environment, and resident
teams benefit from stimulating discussions,
exchange and collaborations within a highperforming ecosystem. The fact that guidance
for the teams is provided by experienced
mentors from both industry and academia
ensures optimal support, combining academic
curiosity, creativity and scientific excellence
with product-oriented and efficiency-driven
thinking and stringent quality-control
systems.
Team members are driven by the research
topic and the desire to conduct productoriented research. The goal is to combine
the quest for fundamental understanding
with practical usability in the frame of a
new product or application. This is termed
“working in Pasteur’s quadrant”7 and has
been defined as a key target area by other
successful innovation agencies, such as the US
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
(DARPA; Washington, DC)8. The innovation
team should be intrinsically motivated, but
it should also be supported by successful
participation modules, as well as career-
VOLUME 33 NUMBER 1 JANUARY 2015 NATURE BIOTECHNOLOGY
npg
© 2015 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved.
CORRESPONDENCE
building options. These options include
intensive entrepreneurship and leadership
training, coaching and the development of a
unique skill set that enables a future career in
an academic or industrial setting.
The outcubator company, set up specifically
for this purpose, acts as a specialized service
provider and an employer for the innovation
teams. It provides the required research
infrastructure, including technical equipment
and research laboratories. In addition, it
facilitates access to the surrounding academic
environment and infrastructure and provides
daily operational support, as well as training
and coaching. The sponsoring pharma
company provides the funding; defines
the deliverables, overall goal and research
topic; and conducts regular project reviews.
However, the innovation team members are
free to make full use of their own creativity
and scientific potential to create advancement
within the field.
The first outcubator of this kind is
the BioMed X Innovation Center on the
life science campus of the University of
Heidelberg, Germany (http://www.bio.mx),
and the first projects there started in August
2013. Meanwhile, three innovation teams
are working on topics nominated by Merck
Serono, the biopharmaceutical division
of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany.
Topics include ‘metabolism and signaling
in cancer’, ‘selective kinase inhibitors’ and
‘immunosuppressive microenvironment
of tumors’. Progress and performance are
being closely monitored so that the intended
benefits of the model can be evaluated and
validated. The addition of other groups in the
future, including teams sponsored by other
pharma companies, is an option and a key
feature of the outcubator model.
Thus far, the possibility of research
positions has generated great interest in the
outcubator concept, and the feedback from
young talent from all around the world has
been positive. The first call for applications,
published in February 2013, resulted in 519
applications from 59 countries. The 32 best
candidates were invited to a 5-day boot camp
in Heidelberg. Seven of them were finally
offered a fellowship at the outcubator.
In an anonymous survey conducted among
the participants of the first boot camp, 89%
(19 of 21 respondents) indicated that they
would recommend the outcubator to their
peers. When they were asked why they had
applied, most candidates referred to their
interest in applied research at the interface
between academia and industry “without
losing the scientific part.” In other words,
most candidates were interested in exploring
In-house
R&D
Corporate
postdoc
pool
Academic
incubator
Outcubator
Funding
academic
group
CRO
outsourcing
Description
Permanent
employees in
corporate R&D
hubs
Temporary
hiring of new
postdocs into
corporate R&D
hubs
Joint industryacademia
project
incubators
Top young
talent placed at
interface
academiaindustry
Industrysponsored work
at university
Industrysponsored work
at CRO
Young talent
Limited
High
High
High
High
Limited
Topic focus
High
High
Medium
High
Hard to control
High
Industry quality
High
High
Medium
Medium
Limited
High
Innovativeness
Medium
Medium
High
High
High
Limited
Flexibility
High
Medium
Limited
Medium
Limited
Light
Knowledge drain
No issue
Critical
Medium
Medium
Medium
Medium
Pharma
Pharma
Mixed
Company
Academia
Company
Location of work
Pharma
Pharma
Academia
Company
Academia
Company
Targets set by
Pharma
Joint
Joint
Pharma
Joint
Pharma
IP ownership
Pharma
Pharma
Joint
Pharma
Joint
Pharma
Employer
O tcubat
Outcubation
Outcuba
tc bation C
Co
Concept
oncept
ncep
pt
Figure 1 Pros and cons of the different approaches for externalization of R&D efforts in the
pharmaceutical industry. IP, intellectual property.
the possibility of an industry career path
without losing the option to continue their
successful careers in academia.
Several pharma companies have tried
various approaches to set up new incubator
models optimizing academia-industry
collaboration. Examples include Pfizer’s
(New York) Centers for Therapeutic
Intervention and GlaxoSmithKline’s
GSK (London)–University of Cambridge
incubator. The outcubator model described
here differs from these approaches in that
it involves a stronger industry focus on
topic selection and project governance.
In addition, its operational setup does not
involve direct contractual relationships
between the pharma company and the
academic entities; rather, it establishes
an entrepreneurial biotech company as
intermediary agent running the operations.
Figure 1 compares the outcubator model
with other open innovation approaches
along various dimensions. It is evident that
each model comes with its own setup and
unique combination of advantages and
disadvantages.
Is the outcubator concept new?
M. Emmert-Buck has described an intramural
‘percubator’ at the US National Institutes
of Health (NIH; Bethesda, MD) as a new
industry-academia interaction model;
however, this is not related to the outcubation
model described here and aims to foster an
entrepreneurial mindset and the formation
of new companies in Bethesda9. As far as we
can tell, neither the outcubator concept nor a
model corresponding to it has been described
previously; we did not find any hits for the
term in PubMed.
In summary, the outcubator model
described here constitutes a new, unique
NATURE BIOTECHNOLOGY VOLUME 33 NUMBER 1 JANUARY 2015
open innovation approach that could
allow pharma companies to increase their
innovation potential and access to young
talent while preserving full discretion over
resource allocation and topic selection. The
model defines and occupies a sweet spot in
the area between outsourcing and academic
incubation.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank F. Rippmann, M. Wolf and R. Lindemann
for their engagement as industry project champions; R.
Wade, M. Patil and V. Umansky for their engagement
as academic mentors; A. Miranville, G. Hirschel, O.
Bauer, S. Heitz and G. Ries for their contributions in
contracting this new model; and
A. Wiest, B. Kirschbaum, K. Urbahns, S. Arkinstall,
C. Huber and J. Schwiezer for their contributions in the
Joint Steering Committee.
Ulrich A K Betz1 & Christian A Tidona2
1Merck KGaA, Merck Serono, Darmstadt,
Germany. 2BioMed X GmbH, Heidelberg,
Germany.
e-mail: [email protected]
COMPETING FINANCIAL INTERESTS
The authors declare competing financial interests:
details are available in the online version of the paper
(doi:10.1038/nbt.3112).
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1137 (2013).
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for Creating and Profiting from Technology (Harvard
Business School Press, 2003).
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481–483 (2012).
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87–88 (2010).
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1997).
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(October 2013) https://hbr.org/2013/10/special-forcesinnovation-how-darpa-attacks-problems.
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